Caring for Your Makeup Brushes in 4 Easy Steps

September 19, 2017

Makeup brushes are an absolute essential if you want to master the art of contouring, coloring, concealing. Even top-of-the-line makeup products won’t give you your desired results if you don’t have a set of good makeup brushes. That being said, taking care of your makeup brushes should always be a top priority or you’ll just end up buying more replacement brushes than you should.

Fortunately, taking care of your makeup brushes is not a difficult task. As long as you know how to do it properly, your brushes will be able to last longer before you have to replace them. Here are a few tips on how to take good care of your makeup brushes.

1. Don’t Get Them Caked Over

Over time, residue from various makeup products will accumulate in the bristles of your brushes. If you don’t pay enough attention to it, these residue can get mixed with oil or moisture and eventually turn into gunk. The buildup will have a bad effect on how well your brush can apply your makeup. To make things even worse, the gunk can even become a breeding ground for bacteria that can cause acne and other skin irritations.

Fortunately, keeping your brushes clean only requires a bit of consistency and effort. For example, you can use Missha Brush Cleaner to clean the bristles in your brush before applying makeup. This is good enough for regular cleaning, but you also want to thoroughly wash your brushes every once in a while.

2. Avoid Soaking

Some people might be tempted to soak their brushes to get rid of stubborn buildup. However, keeping your brushes submerged for a long time can actually do more harm than good, especially if you’re using brushes with wooden handles. Water can seep in this material and cause it to rot or even cause mold to grow on it.

Instead of soaking your brushes, clean them using running water. You may also use a bit of soap to get rid of oil-based residue, but be careful not to use harsh cleaners as they can damage bristle fibers. Also, be careful to keep the bristles pointed away from the source of water.

3. Don’t Wring Them Out

You don’t want your brushes to stay wet for too long. However, you might get tempted to speed up the drying process by wringing them or pinching them with your fingers. While reshaping the brush heads with a few gentle strokes is fine, wringing out the brush can cause you to accidentally pull off the brush bristles and damage them.

There’s no other way around it: if you’re going to dry your brushes, you need to have them air-dried. After washing them by hand, set them on a dry towel or tissue paper. If you can, prop them up with the bristles pointed down so they can shed water faster. Make sure they are completely dry before storing, or they risk becoming a hotbed of molds.

4. Keep Them to Yourself

Because of how much they come in contact with your skin, makeup brushes can be considered very personal items. There’s really no reason why you should let anybody else use them. In fact, letting others use them is a good way of getting them contaminated because you don’t know if the other person is using your brushes on products that you may be allergic to. Also, the borrower might apply too much pressure when using the brushes, causing the bristles to get frayed or damaged.

If it can’t be helped and if you really have to lend your brushes, at least make sure that they are thoroughly cleaned before you use them again. The last thing you want is an outbreak of pimples because your brushes were loaded with stuff that can irritate your skin.

Even a cheap, well-maintained brush will work better than a neglected high-end one — and it will also last a lot longer. Just like how a good artist takes care of their tools, you should always take good care of your brushes, since applying makeup is also a form of art.